I can’t be 100% certain because I’ve forgotten which side of the container I planted boonies. But given the original spouts were straight and all my others are crooked, I suspect this is the first boonie pepper sprout of the season.

Other than that I’m adding a mix of heirloom seeds and a Burpee hybrid this season.

Digging around the Internet, from a post on Gardenweb, I find this interesting comment on heirloom tomatoes near Atlanta:

Arkansas Traveler has produced well for me in Loganville, GA. Big Beef is reliable and a heavy producer but not among my top favorites for taste. Brandywines are so different, regular leaves, potato leaves, pink, red, etc it is hard to comment. The yields are usually relatively small but the right Brandywine has amazing taste. Aunt Ginnys Purple has done well here. Creole takes the heat and I like the taste.

I’ve already planted more plants than I have pots for. It’s time to stop and assess how much work I want to do this year.

To note, if you’re looking for locally raised heirlooms, this company has been recommended by growers from Gardenweb. The Tasteful Garden are growers on I-20 between Birmingham and Atlanta. Their web site is delightful.

I’ve been finding interesting links and mailing them to myself. They’ve been accumulating in an email inbox, useless to anyone. But to dig down into these links and pull out a few of note.

This is a quote from the New York Times article on adobo, the Filipino chicken dish.

As a result, there is great fun to be had in asking Filipinos how to make adobo, particularly when they are in groups. Filipino cooking is an evolutionary masterpiece, a cuisine that includes Chinese, Spanish, American and indigenous island influences, all rolled into one. But where for one Filipino the most important aspect of the dish is Spanish, for another it is Chinese, or both, or neither. (The journalist and food historian Raymond Sokolov has made the point that the ingredients for adobo were present in the Philippines before Magellan — only the name, which comes from a Spanish word for sauce, came later. “Lexical imperialism,” he called this process.)

Husbands argue with wives about adobo. Friends shoot each other dirty looks about the necessity of including coconut milk or soy sauce in the recipe. There are disputations over the kind of vinegar to use, over the use of sugar, over the inclusion of garlic and how much of it. Some use chicken exclusively in the dish, others pork, some a combination of the two.

Adobo is commonly seen in fiestas (parties) in the Marianas, and my wife is half Micronesian. Of course I’m interested.

For those interested in sushi and thus the fate of the bluefin tuna, widespread reports of quota cheating (see here, here and here) certainly dim the prospects of seeing bluefin stocks recovering. Since one of the comments Tony Bourdain makes in his last book is a lament, on why can’t smart chefs incorporate interesting but less popular fish, such as mackerel, into their menus, we then find that people are cheating when it comes to the mackerel catch too. So life goes on.

To note, the Monterey Bay aquarium keeps a list of sustainable fish, foods safe to eat.

I don’t know how many of you have seen the fake food ads on Amazon.com (not for the squeamish). Samples are here and here.

From this article, Marilyn Monroe could cook. It appears as if this recipe was inherited from the DiMaggio family.

Roger Ebert, the well known movie critic, has lost his jaw and can no longer eat. But he still entertains and still cooks. This is an article about Ebert’s new cook book.

Northern Mississippi Commenter doesn’t often talk about food, but when he does, I listen. In this case he’s talking about what he considers to be good BBQ (or not) in Mississippi.

The boonie is inside and it’s fecund. Heavy with peppers, I’m wanting to ensure it could survive our stepping away for a few days. Last year I was a lot more cavalier about it all. This time I’m experimenting. I’ve mentioned plant water spikes already, now its time to worry about lighting.

Lighting is provided with these bulbs, day and night timing with these inexpensive timers, and the final element is a light fixture stolen from the computer room. I was (and am) looking for small portable light fixtures with a nice parabolic back stop so I can direct a beam of light at my large plant. Anyone know of someone selling office fixtures that can handle 60 watt bulbs anymore? A check of Office Depot showed fixtures that could only handle 13 watts.

The plant light bulbs are huge, with a ballast that puts a 100 watt “equivalent” bulb to shame. In the picture below, the smaller bulb is the standard 60 watt replacement bulb.

With the boonies, 3 are alive, for sure. One looks good. The other four look more and more dubious by the moment, but I’ll keep watering them for a while. But I’m coming to the conclusion that I’ll need to grow a couple more plants from seed to really have the number of healthy plants I want. My wife thinks I took them out too early. Perhaps. Perhaps I have to lose the few that can’t survive winter to keep the ones that can.

I’m buying and putting into containers a tomato variety called husky cherry red. I’m hoping they are good container plants, though I’m reading that they can get 50 inches in height. I also bought a Japanese eggplant, because my daughter wanted one. I have no special hopes for the plant, but if it does well, so much the better.

If the plants get too big, I’m going to make cylinders of rabbit wire, drop them over the pots, and hope that keeps them growing.

The surgery was a success, and the boot is gone. There are lingering pains here and there, but I can fit into a shoe for the first time in months, as opposed to wearing slippers. I can be decent company for someone going out. That’s definitely a plus. So I went out, tried Kampai, a steak, seafood, and tapas joint, in Lawrenceville, located where the On the Border used to be. Nice place, I liked it. Photos and a review shortly.

My boonie peppers are alive but not doing well. Some may have died. I need some warmer weather, about 80 during the day and better than 50 at night to be sure. Till then I water them and keep my fingers crossed.

The New York Times has an interesting article on the effects the lack of slaughterhouses have on the locavore movement. Higher slaughterhouse standards are causing slaughterhouses to close. Therefore, farmers trying to supply regional meat are having to book time for slaughter before animals are being born.

Finally a pic. I got a new scale – the Ozeri – that could weigh to the gram. The spice mill I finally devoted to sichuan pepper left my daughter bereft. Before, the mill had black pepper and she was enjoying being able to grind her own. I bought another. I’ll make sure that one stays pepper oriented.